Train Travel and Bus Line Questions for Italy

The general opinion is that you are better off with point-to-point tickets in Italy. If you are 100% certain of your schedule and plan to take the highspeed AV trains, you can even buy "mini" fares in advance on Trenitalia's website. For more details than you can imagine, go to RoninRome.com and look for his many sources on trains. Sorry, I have no info on busses. I'm a train-gal whenever possible!

Very rarely does a pass pay off in Italy. The routes are just too short and the Point to Point tickets too cheap to make it work. Add in that if you want a fast train, you then have to buy a reservation on top of your pass for about 10 euro, and it makes it really tough. Point to point, purchased at the station the day of or the day before is the easiest route to go. If you want to plan ahead and have no issues trying to navigate online ticket sales, you can buy ahead on www.Trenitalia.com and save some money. Others will probably chime in with info on that, I have not done it personally, so I hesitate to give directions. Trenitalia is also good for looking at routes, times of departure, length of the journey, and more. It will also give you pricing to compare, but keep in mind that information for September 2012 is not loaded yet. You can however pick a date out a month or so, get timetables and pricing, it should not change greatly for planning purposes. One thing to look for is the different classes of travel and types of trains. There are Regional, Intercity, and Fast trains. Price and speed goes up with the scale, but if you do not mind an extra half hour on the train you can save quite a bit by going second class on slower trains. Someone mentioned that they added some classes on premium trains, splitting 2nd class into two classes, and the same for first, so watch for that. As for buses, yes there usually is bus service to the towns and Italy in General has a well developed Bus service. It is however mostly privatized and operated by a myriad of different companies making it a bit difficult to decipher. Your best bet might be to do some searches; "Cascia Italy Bus Service" brings up quite a bit of information on the town and how to get there by bus as well as indicating which bus service runs there. From there you can go the the Bus Service site and explore more.

I'm not a big fan of renting a car in Italy EXCEPT under the circumstances you describe. Cascia is so remote it doesn't even have a train station. Bus service between small towns can be sporadic at best. Plus, the buses can be a little intimidating unless you speak Italian. Anyway, just my two cents. Happy travels.

Wanda, I've never had occasion to travel to Cascia, but I believe there is daily Bus service available from Roma Tiburtina station. The same is probably true of L'Aquila. Have a look at This website for information. With detailed planning, it should be possible to travel by public transport. Another option would be to travel from Rome to Spoleto (travel time ~1H:30M) by train and then Bus to Cascia. However, the previous reply makes a good point that this is one case where a rental car may be an advantage. That option comes with a few "complications" though, inlcuding the compulsory I.D.P., high CDW and fuel charges and potential high fines for venturing into ZTL zones. I'd suggest looking at public transport first and use a rental car as a last resort. Good luck with your planning!

Wanda, Rail passes rarely make sense for intra-Italy travel, especially if you factor in advanced purchase discounts (easier now that Trenitalia accepts most American cards). That is because prices of passes are high, and all non-regional trains require reservation fees that can pile up nicely (€ 15 here, € 20 there etc.) L'Aquila is served by a regional rail line, but that is pretty much about it. To travel on remote hills of Abruzzo or similar activities without a car is really a hassle, it is the ideal conditions for a car trip. Buses will take you to most places, but schedules are erratic, and there is no central information point or central coordinated service you can resort to. You need to find information for each bus route. Some remote places are served by "call-buses" that you need to call in advance to reserve a place, then be given a time to wait for it. It is unlikely many bus drivers will speak English. A tactic that works nicely, ableit simple, is to write down in a post-it what you want beforehand like "2 biglietti - da: Sumona per: Isernia". Moreover, each area has a different ticketing system: in some you need to buy tickets from a nearby newstand, pub or store. In others, you buy them from the driver. In some other lines, it depends on where are you boarding. It is nothing un-doable, just make sure you have the correct information beforehand. However, at least in my opinion, the most cogent reason to consider a car for small-town hopping tour is that buses are usually centered in getting people form a larger (relatively) hub or a train station to villages and places without train service, but they don't have many buses running. That way, you could find yourself stuck in a small city from 10am until 3pm when the next bus comes.

As you can read above, a railpass in Italy is generally not cost justified. The only train that you can hop onto without a separate seat reservation fee is the Regionale trains which are the inter-city locals making every stop. However, once you see how cheap the Regionale tickets are, you'll throw rocks at your pass. As for buses, Italy does not have a national bus system. Instead, there are dozens of private bus lines throughout the country. Bus company operations vary in size and schedules. Schedules can be erratic and most have very limited operations on Sundays and holidays. The rental car in the Abruzzo Region is an excellent idea. You can easily get around and parking is often very decent. Also, you are very close to Umbria where you could travel to Assisi and Perugia. It's really the best way to get around given a limite travel schedule. If you are arriving and depating at Rome-FCO, you can easily rent a car at the airport. Or see Rome first and rent the car in Orvietto near the train station and then drive to L'Aquila and Cascia.